Potocki was '18th Century Tarantino'

Jan Potocki. Image: wikipedia

“I think Potocki is like Tarantino because he was able to combine many different conventions, as well as facts and realities that he had observed,” Swiatek said.

“It seems to me that he was very ahead of his time.

“This connection [with Tarantino] may sound shocking, but when it comes to Jan Potocki's sense of fantasy, I assure you that it is no exaggeration.”

Swiatek, who won plaudits for adaptations of works by contemporary Polish author Dorota Maslowska and late avant-garde playwright Samuel Beckett, assures he will not be making a “historical drama” out of the material.

The original novel follows the adventures of Alphonse van Worden, a Walloon soldier in Spain who is drawn into a world of thieves, brigands, cabbalists, gypsies and more.

A film version of Count Jan Potocki's novel was made by acclaimed Polish director Wojciech Has in 1965, and the movie is a favourite of Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola.

Count Jan Potocki ended his life in 1815, apparently shooting himself with a bullet that had been fashioned from a silver sugar bowl. Fellow nobles from the Podolia region (now in Ukraine) passed down the tale Potocki believed he had become a werewolf.

The premiere of The Manuscript Found in Saragossa will be held on 8 February at the Jan Kochanowski Theatre in Opole. (nh)

Source: culture.pl, gazeta wyborcza